﻿Son of a military surgeon; studied law and was admitted to the bar as an advocate of the Parlement of Bordeaux; appointed prosecutor of the Commune of Bordeaux (1790); elected a member of the Court of Appeal (1791); elected (4 Sep 1791) as a representative of the département of Gironde to the Assemblée nationale (National Assembly) (1791-1792); elected Vice President (11 Mar 1792 - 18 Mar 1792) and President of the National Assembly (18 Mar 1792 - 2 Apr 1792); formed together with his friends, Pierre-Victurnien Vergniaud and Marguerite-Élie Guadet, the core of the Girondin faction; proposed the decree of accusation against two brothers of King Louis XVI (1 Jan 1792) and the declaration of war against the king of Bohemia and Hungary Franz I (20 Apr 1792); was appointed a member of the Commission extraordinaire des Douze (Extraordinary Commission of Twelve) (12 Aug 1792 - 21 Sep 1792); elected (5 Sep 1792) to the Convention nationale (National Convention) (1792-1794) as a deputy for Gironde; in his speeches attacked the Commune of Paris; supported an appeal to the people, but voted for the death sentence in the trial of Louis XVI; served as President of the National Convention (7 Mar 1793 - 21 Mar 1793); was one of the 29 Girondin leaders proscribed by the decree of the Convention (2 Jun 1792); was included in the report on accusation presented by Jean-Baptiste-André Amar to the Convention (3 Oct 1793); appeared in the Revolutionary Tribunal (24 Oct 1793), was condemned to death (30 Oct 1793) and guillotined (31 Oct 1793).
Biography source: [3]

﻿Elections:

﻿

Candidate

Votes (18 Mar 1792)

Arnaud Gensonné

264

voters/absolute majority

358/180

Election result source: [2, vol. XL, p. 102]

﻿

[1]

Gensonné's baptismal act was discovered in municipal archives of Bordeaux by Pierre Meller and was published in the Archives historiques de département de la Gironde, t. XXXII (Bordeaux, 1897), p. 229. According to this document, he was born on 9 Aug 1758 and was baptised as Arnaud on 10 Aug 1758.